Final Fantasy 12 was ATB but no more random encounters.

BoI is one of the few games that I've see that got less fun the more the actual dev added to it.

And AI controlled other party members. You only controlled one person and had to actively switch control between characters to get smart play, and there was no way to pause the action while issuing orders

I know you'd have absolutely no reason to, but have you looked into Zodiac/International editions of XII?

Duke Nukem Forever: There shouldn't be any trouble for a normal grown up to distinguish between adult macho and diaper macho. Should be erased from the planet... along with both developers.

Falcon 4.0(?): Not only did it take forever to make a boot disk (had to enlist an engineer. Seriously!), the game and the UI was terrible, and after just 30 minutes of hacking and slashing the keyboard, the game crashed/froze. Luckily, my Compac90, oh so thoughtfully... also crapped out. I never want to see that game again.

Too many to count. Don't want to bring back painful memories.

Wasteland 2
my second Kickstarter project supported by me, $15 is not a penny and I got ugly pile of disappointment that run like a slog (all these stereotypes about Unity engine felt real in WL2).
About year or two later there were already released a dozen of project that were better investments but it was too late.
Never supported any KS project again. I'm joking, that was because financial crisis hit and games went aside... heh, eh, meh.

Fallout3
I remember those massive flame wars back then. Main argument - "it was perspective issues", yeah because coming from isometric to first person turned writing, plot and engine into hot mess. Sure.

Some X360 "easy achievements" game that was so bad and boring it cured me from this mess.

Path of Exile
Though I was too old for modern problems like F2P and microtransactions, thinking 'they don't affect me".
They did. Spend like I dunno, $30-50? mostly stuff like larger stash. It would let me buy better games to spend free time on, which get more and more precious with passing years.

Darkest Dungeon
Was nice game in Early Access. They shouldn't listen to these bored maniac who spend... not free time but whole life on grind. This and RNG that often is beyond your abilities to deal with it. Like, game is about dealing with RNG but there are moment when nothing helps. Unless you dedicate yourself to this game and none else, and have a lot of spare time.

I don't normally regret playing anything because I don't value my own time or life all that highly, but online CCGs are an exception. Why? Because they're designed around selling booster packs, and it cuts deeply into the gameplay. How would you like it if in an RPG if you could only use abilities that you got randomly from lootboxes? How would you like it if you could never keep up with the meta because every content update is intended to push microtransactions? You'd probably call it P2W gambling garbage, wouldn't you? Well, CCGs were doing it before it was cool.

Yeah. I like the improved skill trees, but the gameplay is still the same ultimately.

Russian Roulette. My ears are STILL ringing!

Wow. Hadn't expected some of these...

I gave up on Path of Exile after a month or so. IMO it was very well-made but just not that engaging. Simply lost interest.

Darkest Dungeon surprises me. That game has been on my radar forever but thought about finally playing over the next few months. I certainly don't have a ton of time though. Hmmmm...

Morrowind - NEVER base a 1st person game on tabletop rules

Fallout 3 - C'mon turn NO DON'T CTD!

Fallout 4 - Survival CHUG CHUG CHUG 10,000,000 Aeon quest 1 trillionth of a nanosecond away from finish and CRASH

going insane and NUKING the entire world - Priceless

Skyrim - walk walk walk and die for no apparent reason?!?

Oblivion - WHERE'S THE SHADOWS TODD!

It's not any better. The core game is still the same: it's a single player MMO combat system, and that sucks.

(Going back a couple posts though: FFX-2 was actually pretty good, so long as you didn't power level.)

Game I regret playing? I tend to drop them before I get to the regret phase. Plenty I regret buying though... Hmm, Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce [360/PS3]. I admit I'm a fanboy for the "Koei Warriors" games, but I never got all of them since they do, err, repeat some. This one looks like a great iteration in play, visuals, and lore...

Oh, and it's one of the first ones where they stripped out couch co-op, which is entirely the point of the games for me. They kept advertising it had coop. But it was Internet shit only.

Magic: the Gathering. So much money spent on cards. :-/

Certainly there have been a few, but my memory is prone to be spotty on those moments. I do recall a friend buying a sort of publication with games at a news-stand. There were 3 games advertised and one of them looked amazing in the screenshots. It was the worst of the bunch! It had no fun gameplay and the animations were quite basic. Lesson learned: some games were made to be sold based on screenshots alone.

Simcity 2000 SE. One of the first games I bought here and I still have no idea how to play it right. Also, apparently the windows 95 version is the best? So, I just bought a lesser version of a game w/ a steep learning curve that's probably not even for me.

Little Inferno. I got it at full price 'cause the story/ending was hyped up for me. Sadly, I think it's underwhelming in that aspect.

West of Loathing. Great if you want to endlessly grind and over-level your character (which I did at the time), bad if you were expecting continued support for the GOG version.

Edit: I read the title as "Games that you regret buying", which is not entirely true for what I listed. Oops.